Page 1 of Life After Me

The Worst End to a Year

Jennifer

You know that old saying some people have about “today being the first day of the rest of your life”? Well, it’s not true. At least not for me, and not for today. Because today’s the day I died.

It didn’t really hurt. In a way I think it should have. Something so monumental as being ripped out of the world should have been marked by something. It takes so much pain to enter the world that I feel like there should be just as much when you leave.

But there wasn’t. There wasn’t much of anything.

Then again, it’s someone else’s pain and suffering at birth, and there are definitely other people suffering now.

I’m not sure I even woke up before I died.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky to have gone so quickly and quietly, but I don’t.

In truth, Ifeel a bit cheated. If I’d been given the chance to plan my death, it would have been safe and warm and peaceful, surrounded by the people I love the most. And a lot of years from now.

I wasn’t ready for this. It isn’t fair. I don’t want to be here.

But I didn’t get a choice. There was a sudden jerk and shock that slammed into me, which melted away into empty coolness. Then, I was here, watching myself fall. No pain or fear. Just the peculiar feeling that Iwas dropping away from the living world and falling into this one.

Wherever it is.

Watching my husband though, that hurt. More than any other pain I’ve ever felt. Including breaking my leg at fifteen and giving birth to our children. More than the lorry crashing into me.

I watched as David blinked and came back to life after the accident, pushing the airbag out of his eyes. His face was smeared with blood and Iwanted to reach out and comfort him, to ease his pain and soothe him the way I’d done for years. But I can’t do that anymore.

I watched as he fought against his seat belt, struggling against the straps until he could turn and reach me. Panic filled his eyes and he screamed my name over and over again. But my ears were already deaf to him.

Other hands appeared, reaching through the tortured, twisted metal to pull us free.

They half-supported and half-lifted David to safety.

Then they reached for me. They hesitated, fingers fluttering at my throat, trying to find the signs of life that should have been there.

They hesitated in their hopeless search before pulling me out anyway.

Soon, flashing blue lights arrived, and other hands took hold of me ... or at least what I’d always thought of as me until now.

It had been strange, watching how they’d manoeuvred my body to the side of the road, and pummelled and punched, jabbing me with needles as they tried to drag me back into their world and hold me there with them. Then we were racing towards the hospital.

I did try to hold on like the voices begged me to. I tried to push my way back into my body, but they didn’t know that I was too far gone from it, even if I did. The coldness had already sunk in and wrapped around me, dragging the still thinking and feeling part of me away.

* * *

I didn’t live an extraordinary life. It certainly wasn’t the one I’d planned in a fit of teenage optimism all those years ago. But there’s another saying about that, isn’t there? Best laid plans and all . Something like that.

But I did love my life. I loved the kids I taught, I loved the home and family that David and I had created in Hillingdon.

If you don’t know it, it’s a borough at the edge of London, pretty much at the end of the tube lines.

Halfway between city and country, it was just another suburb, but I loved it.

Unextraordinary, unassuming, and utterly perfect to me.

I wasn’t particularly religious when I was alive.

My sister, Sarah, had always been the good girl who paid attention in Sunday School and kept up with church as she’d gotten older, but me?

I’d been too busy living my life to really think about it all.

But if I had found the time, this wouldn’t be what I would have pictured as the afterlife.

I suppose if I had thought about it, Iwould have expected warm lights and fluffy clouds.

A welcoming hug from my dead mum or gran, maybe. I don’t know. But it wasn’t this.

I didn’t expect to be stuck in this odd place where nothing seems to have any meaning, and everything is nothing.

Time, distance and feelings. It’s all here, but nothing is quite right.

It all echoes too much, with everything amplified and softened at the same time.

It’s all just ... nothing. And everything.

All at once. All of time and all of space.

Right here, in this strange, grey world.

I didn’t want this, but there’s no going back. No matter how much I want to.

* * *

David

It all seems so unreal. They let me out of the hospital this morning. Once they’d stopped the nosebleed and stitched up my forehead, there wasn’t really much else they could do. I think the overnight observation was really only out of pity.

My keys got left in the car, so I had to use Jenn’s to get back into the house.

I must have used them before, but I couldn’t remember which key was which, and it took me three attempts to get the door open.

It shouldn’t have been so hard to open the door with her keys, but the bunch was weighted wrong in my hand, with her work keys and different keyring.

But I shouldn’t be here by myself either, and I shouldn’t be holding a plastic bag emblazoned with the hospital’s logo that’s filled with Jenn’s things. I should be holding her hand.

Just like the too-heavy keys, the bag weighed too much, so I dropped it to the floor and kicked it behind the shoe cupboard into the gap that usually does nothing but gather dust and swallow letters.

I flicked on the lights and turned the answerphone off while still on autopilot, then wandered into the living room. It could have been any other day when I got home before Jenn, and part of me waited for her to walk in the door in a few minutes’ time.

Apart from the bag. But that’s hidden from view, and for now I don’t have to think about it.

Everything looked the same. It was just our living room, a bit messier than usual, but it was always a bit messy at this time of year.

The Christmas tree was starting to wilt, and the last few presents that still needed delivering were piled up underneath.

It’s strange, this time of year. Things seem to change so quickly.

A week ago all the sparkle and tinsel was exciting and full of promise.

Now it’s just tired-looking, and another job waiting for me.

The house always looked tired at this time too.

The couch appearing slightly more faded, the wallpaper that was starting to peel, just a tiny bit, in the corner above the door, all the more noticeable.

The mirror mocked me, flinging my haggard reflection back.

Jenn had always claimed to like my dull blond hair and brown eyes, but to me they just looked ordinary — though now my eyes were swollen with tears and bruising, and my hair was matted and darkened against my head.

I looked closer to seventy than fifty. The face that stared back at me didn’t seem to be mine, but that made sense because the life I had been living in recent hours doesn’t feel like mine either.

Jenn’s scarf was still there. She’d changed her mind at the last minute and flung it across the back of the chair. Her cup rested on the table next to it, half an inch of tea still in the bottom. I rolled my eyes. Why couldn’t she ever use a coaster?

Then I remembered.

Pain stabbed through me as reality attacked me again.

I picked up the cup and cradled it between my hands.

It was ice cold, but the print of her lips still kissed the rim where she’d taken a sip after applying her make-up.

She always did that just before we walked out the door.

I loved watching her put on her make-up.

Some women take forever, primping and fluffing and doing God only knows what.

But not my Jenn. She patted on that cream stuff quickly, swept colours over her eyes, then flicked the mascara over the top.

A quick swish of the pink brush, a kiss of lipstick and she’d be done.

She’d smile at me in the mirror and give her hair a final brush, and then she’d be ready.

She always laughed and teased me about how long I take to get ready.

But it’s easier for her. She looked gorgeous from the second she rolled out of bed.

Even when she was tired and creased from sleep, she was still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I wish I’d told her more.

How can she be gone?

It feels like it’s all a big mistake, and that she should walk through the door any second, kick off her shoes in the hall and chuck her coat over the banister.

She always promises to put it away later, but usually forgets, distracted by something far more interesting and exciting.

Invariably I’ll take it upstairs for her and hang it carefully in the wardrobe.

I always complain about it, but really I don’t mind. I like looking after Jenn.

Liked.

The word is liked now. With a very final, solid extra d . One single, innocent-looking letter that takes my wife from “is” to “was”. From living to ... not.

I don’t understand any of this.

Her slippers still sat on the floor, slightly trodden down at the back, and the book she’d been reading still balanced on the arm of her favourite chair.

The cushions were still piled up oddly, all leaning to one side, and I could clearly see the dent from where she always rested her elbow as she tilted the book to catch the morning light.

How could she possibly be gone?

It’s so wrong.

I sat on the sofa, and stared at her chair.

I remember when we bought that. It was a few years ago.

Jenn saw it in one of those antique stores by the market and had to have it.

I hated it on sight and swore it wouldn’t fit in with our colour scheme.

That it was the wrong shade. That it was too big.

That it was plain ugly. We’d argued about it, and she’d won.

She usually did. She’d been right, of course.

It fits into the alcove perfectly and makes the room seem a bit warmer and cosier.

Especially when she’s curled up in it. She’d tuck her feet into one corner and balance a cup of tea on the arm while she read, or worked on lesson plans and marked homework, a soft smile usually playing at the corners of her mouth.

It didn’t make sense.

I couldn’t understand the idea of Jenn not coming back or never sitting in her chair again.

She hadn’t even finished the book she was reading.

It can’t be real. It has to be a mistake, or a bad dream that I’m going to wake up from.

I stared at the cold cup caught between my fingers and concentrated on that instead. I’m not ready to think about a world without Jenn. I don’t think I could survive in a world like that.

Please God, let this be some terrible mistake and let her be coming home to me.

* * *

I didn’t hear the key click in the lock, or register the thumps as bags hit the hall floor, but a few seconds later one of the few voices left in the world that could reach me echoed through my thoughts and dragged me back to reality.

‘Dad?’

I looked up to see Charlotte standing in the doorway, her eyes red and blotchy against her too-pale skin.

People say she looks like me, but I don’t see it.

When I look at her, it’s Jenn’s dreamy hazel eyes that I see, Jenn’s stubborn chin, and Jenn’s soft mouth that’s always quicker to smile than frown.

But now those lips were pressed together tightly, and they trembled as Charlotte tried not to cry.

Two decades melted away in a moment, and the pink streaked hair, battered jeans and shredded top disappeared.

In my mind Charlotte was four years old again, warm in her princess pyjamas and upset because she couldn’t find her favourite teddy.

Only it’s not that easy any more. I couldn’t fix these tears with a hug and a game of aeroplane. It’s not as easy as finding Ted behind the sofa, or in the greenhouse dressed as a pirate.

‘Dad?’ She gave her heavy bag a kick with one of her clunky boots. ‘I brought stuff to stay for a while. I can go home whenever, but I thought you wouldn’t ...’ Her voice broke and she swallowed hard. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of you being alone right now.’

I stared at my baby girl, once again amazed by the beautiful, thoughtful person Jenn and I had created. ‘Thanks, sweetheart, that sounds good.’

‘I talked to Aunt Sarah. She’s flying in via Edinburgh and driving down with Matty. She didn’t want him driving down alone. Oh, Daddy...’ Her face crumpled and her voice broke as tears streamed down her cheeks.

I held my arms out to her, not knowing what to say or how to take the pain away. I didn’t know how to make it better for myself, let alone her.